Tenant-Specific Routing Tables for Packet Redirection in Autonomous Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current Internet routing architectures face challenges in efficiently redirecting packets within an autonomous system (AS) to the appropriate egress gateway, particularly in multi-tenant environments where multiple egress interfaces and routing policies need to be managed effectively.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a system where packets destined for private tenant networks are encapsulated and redirected through a redirector within the AS, which selects the appropriate egress gateway using Routing and Forwarding (RF) tables associated with each tenant, allowing for efficient routing and isolation of tenant networks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple egress interfaces are used to improve network scalability and tenant isolation, then network security and scalability are enhanced, but device complexity and routing management difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The routing table is segmented into multiple tenant-specific routing tables, each maintaining routing information for a specific tenant. This allows the system to handle multiple tenants with different routing requirements independently, improving scalability while keeping each routing table manageable in size and complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new dimension of tenant identification to the routing process. Instead of traditional single routing tables, the system uses tenant IDs as an additional dimension to select appropriate routing tables, enabling multi-tenant isolation and scalability without proportionally increasing overall system complexity.
2Reliability
If tenant-specific routing tables are implemented to improve tenant isolation and security, then network security is enhanced, but lookup time and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by maintaining pre-configured tenant-specific routing tables with all necessary routing information already organized and ready. When a packet arrives, the tenant ID is used to immediately select the appropriate pre-prepared routing table, avoiding the need for complex real-time routing decisions and minimizing lookup time.
3Measurement precision
If multiple routing tables are maintained for different tenants to improve routing precision, then routing accuracy is enhanced, but memory consumption and system resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
Each tenant-specific routing table contains only the routing information relevant to that particular tenant, giving each table local quality tailored to its tenant's needs. This avoids the waste of storing unnecessary routing entries for other tenants in each table, optimizing memory usage while maintaining high routing accuracy for each tenant's traffic.
Data Source
AI summary
A redirector within an Autonomous System (AS) is configured to access a set of Routing and Forwarding (RF) tables associated with a respective set of tenants. A current packet, addressed to a private IP address of a private tenant network outside the AS, is received by the redirector. The redirector executes a look up of the private IP address in a RF table, from the set of RF tables, that corresponds to the tenant associated with the packet. The redirector selects an egress interface of a egress gateway of the AS based on the look up. The redirector encapsulates the current packet and an identifier of the egress interface within an outer packet and transmits the outer packet to the egress gateway. The egress gateway transmits the packet toward the private IP address of the private tenant network using the egress gateway selected by the redirector.